Fraser D. Neiman, Department of Archaeology, Monticello and Departments of Anthropology and Architectural History, University of Virginia

Project Description

The Monticello-University of Virginia Field School offers a hands-on introduction to basic excavation, recording, and laboratory techniques in archaeology. The course emphasizes a scientific, multidisciplinary approach to doing landscape archaeology. It also provides the opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge research into the ecological and social dynamics that unfolded on Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello Plantation in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Technical topics covered include survey and excavation strategies as well as recovery techniques and analytical possibilities for deposits and the sediments they contain, soils, faunal remains, plant phytoliths and pollen, macrobotanicals, tree rings, and spatial distributions of artifacts across sites and landscapes. The course offers students an opportunity to learn from and interact with our scientific collaborators in all these areas (geoarchaeology, zooarchaeology, paleoethnobotany, dendrochronology).

Our fieldwork addresses changing patterns of land use and settlement on Thomas Jefferson's Monticello Plantation from c. 1750 to 1860, along with their ecological and social causes and consequences. Toward the end of the 18th century, spurred by shifts in the Atlantic economy, Thomas Jefferson and planters across the Chesapeake region replaced tobacco cultivation with a more diversified agricultural regime, based around wheat. Our research is revealing the enormous implications of this shift for what the landscape looked like and how enslaved African-Americans worked and lived on it. Significant questions remain about the ecological processes that were unleashed, how they were experienced by slaves and slave owners, and the importance of changing slave work routines in explaining social dynamics among enslaved and free people.

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Period(s) of Occupation:
Eighteenth and early-nineteenth century Chesapeake

Notes:

The Monticello-UVA Field School emphasizes how a multidisciplinary scientific approach to field research in archaeology can enhance our understanding of the linked social and ecological processes responsible for landscape change.

Project size:

1-24 participants

Minimum Length of Stay for Volunteers:
6 weeks

Minimum age:

18

Experience required:

No.

Room and Board Arrangements

Air conditioned housing at the University of Virginia is available to students at an estimated cost of $40 per night or roughly $280 per week for a single room. Meals are available at an additional cost through University dining services, or students can choose to prepare their own meals. Numerous summer sublets are also available in Charlottesville, but students will need to make their own arrangements

Academic Credit

Name of institution offering credit:

The University of Virginia

Number of credits offered
6

Tuition:

Tuition rates are set by the University of Virginia and vary by residency status (see this link for details: http://summer.virginia.edu/tuition-and-feesl). For Virginia residents, total field-school tuition for 6 credits is $2,262 for undergraduates and $2,352 for graduate students. For non-residents, tuition is $8,082 for undergraduates and $5,136 for graduate students. All students accepted into the field school will receive scholarships from Monticello worth half the tuition charge.